A perfect Madrid

“I'm sure, Madrid is not going to win everything.” After drawing at Sevilla's home and leaving two points in the fight for LaLiga, Quique Setién appealed to the fallibility of the eternal rival to convince himself that Barcelona still had something to say. There, too, reality has turned its back on the Catalans and smiled at Madrid, whose record since football returned, after the break due to the coronavirus crisis, is perfect: nine games, nine wins, 17 goals for and three against. A trajectory that leaves the 34th league of the whites to shot: it is enough to add two points, either with a victory or with two draws in the two remaining days, against Villarreal and Leganés. With the distant memory of historical blunders (Tenerife, twice), Madrid will try to close the job tomorrow at Di Stéfano against Yellow Submarine, pulling the weapons that have turned him into a round team.

Discrete domain

A debate is spreading in recent weeks: Madrid wins, but does not convince. An argument that has become viral as a result of the three wins followed by the minimum (Espanyol, Getafe and Athletic) and the actions of the VAR, decisive at various times. The numbers, however, paint a very different reality: Madrid has averaged 1.9 goals in favor of the confinement, only 0.3 against, 15.9 shots between clubs (against Alavés they were 24; against Valencia, 21), just 3.4 shots on target against and an average possession of 60.7% (He won it in eight of the nine duels; only Real Sociedad took it from him, 52-48). True, for lack of inspiration, Madrid has pulled pragmatism, but from there to chain nine victories without deserving it is a chasm.

Zizou's whiteboard and wardrobe

With the accumulation of parties, the rotations went from optional to mandatory and Zidane had to balance the different troops within his tactical booklet. The Frenchman, with the 4-3-3 as a base, has repeatedly deformed his idea to accommodate the necessary men or those who ask for a step with his performance. Thus, against Valencia he started with a 4-4-2 with Hazard and Benzema on point; against Mallorca he made an ultra-offensive bet, with a 4-2-3-1 that it united in attack Bale, Hazard, Vinicius and Benzema; and in Granada he turned to the five midfielders with whom he won the Spanish Super Cup in Saudi Arabia (Casemiro, Kroos, Modric, Valverde and Isco), arranged in a kind of tree (4-3-2-1, system that learned well from Carlo Ancelotti). The touch-ups in the middle of the games were not strange, but Zidane has demonstrated in these nine wins his tactical flexibility, as well as the depth of his squad. Beyond eleven, names such as Vinicius, Rodrygo, Asensio, Militao have had weight …

The goal belongs to everyone

With Mendy's goal against Granada, there are already 21 white players who have seen the door of this League (a historical record in the Spanish tournament); Among field players, only Militao, Brahim and Odriozola (on loan to Bayern in January) did not score in the domestic tournament. Benzema leads with 19 goals, followed by Ramos with 10, and later a core line appears that has participated especially in offensive tasks: Four goals from Kroos and Casemiro, three from Modric, two from Valverde and one for Isco and James. There are 15 league goals for the midfielders; last year there were 12 at the end of the championship. Modric deserves a separate comment: at almost 35 years old, this seemed the season in which he was going to take the definitive step back, But if it has, it has been to gain momentum. The Croatian is the eighth player most used by Zidane in the League, with 103 minutes more than a Fede Valverde who takes almost a decade and a half. And he has accompanied his three goals with seven assists.

The white wall

Cristiano left, taking with him to Turin the 450 goals who scored in white over nine seasons (50 on average per course), and Zidane decided that if he couldn't score, he wasn't going to fit them. An exercise in basic mathematics that, at first, failed: Madrid received six goals in the first four days of the League. Courtois, who heard some whistles at the Bernabéu (Keylor's shadow, with his three Champions, was long), calmed down and the results came: only 22 goals against and the Belgian, with an average of 0.58 goals conceded by match (19 in 33 duels), he walks firmly towards his third Zamora Trophy. Up to 18 times Madrid has zeroed their rivals.

Ramos, a leader behind and in front

The nickname of top white scorer after confinement is shared: Benzema and Ramos have scored five goals each. They deserve special mention those of the central one, that not only has been distinguished by the solvency that is showing behind, in the company of a also very safe Varane, but also in attack. Three came from a penalty, a luck in which that of Camas is a specialist: he has 20 in a row without failing, 22 counting the tiebreaker rounds; another, before Eibar, appearing in positions of nine, which has never upset him; and another one of excelsa direct fault against Mallorca, with one of the cleanest and most aesthetic shots that this championship will leave us. And that missed Alavés' visit to the Alfredo Di Stéfano stadium due to yellow accumulation …

Benzema: goals and magic

The other main architect of the white streak after confinement is a Benzema who has scored five goals. He does not manage to completely avoid that tendency to have drought streaks (he accumulated four games without scoring between the end of June and the beginning of July), but he compensates with generosity: before Alavés he attended Asensio and in Cornellà the pass of goal of the 2019-20 League, with a 'heel-spout' that left Casemiro alone against Diego López and was worth three points. He has 19 goals in LaLiga and plays against him that Ramos absorbs the vast majority of penalties in favor of Madrid; if they were for Karim, Messi would perhaps not lead the scoring chart (22).